Ken Pruitt: Big Money and, now, Big Sugar

Residents, environmentalists and newspaper writers all say they’re disappointed and shocked that former state Sen. Ken Pruitt, now St. Lucie County’s property appraiser, is taking money to lobby for Florida Crystals, a.k.a. Big Sugar.

But should they be? From the beginning of his career, Mr. Pruitt always has been about politics and money. During his legislative career, he brought astonishing amounts of state cash to Treasure Coast business, education and conservation projects.

The Port St. Lucie Republican earned his green credentials on the Treasure Coast by getting state money to finance clean-up projects for the St. Lucie River and Lake Okeechobee. He brought home millions more for the Manatee Observation and Education Center in Fort Pierce and a nature center at Jonathan Dickinson State Park.

He won huge amounts of state money to advance Everglades restoration, to expand Indian River State College, to attract the biotech industry to the Treasure Coast, to start a marine sciences program run by Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution and Florida Atlantic University.

Besides spreading joy with all that money, Mr. Pruitt’s very public private life made Martin and St. Lucie county residents feel they know him personally. We sympathized with his wife Aileen’s long battle with breast cancer. We watched him mourn the 2007 death of his son, 29-year-old Ken Pruitt Jr., who died of an apparent accidental overdose. We saw him tear up when IRSC named a building for him.

Mr. Pruitt wasn’t always a champion of the environment. In 1994, when he was a state representative, the Florida League of Conservation Voters chose him for the third time as worst legislator of the year for his pro-growth, anti-environment record. And, adding his property appraiser’s job to his lobbying business isn’t the first time he’s held public and private jobs. When his well-drilling business failed in 1994, he sold real estate along with his legislative duties.

He’s a politician. In 1998, releases of polluted fresh water from Lake Okeechobee into the St. Lucie River made fish sicken and die and birds and tourists disappear. More than 30,000 residents signed petitions demanding action to save the river. Mr. Pruitt got the message: If his constituents care about the environment, so should he.

No one who watched him sweep into an auditorium filled with 400 angry residents shouting at a stage full of water management bureaucrats can forget his commanding presence. And he delivered on his promises.
Over the next several years, the man enviros loved to hate turned into a champion for Florida waters. He was the top alligator-spotter on boat trips to check river conditions. He wouldn’t toss a biodegradable apple core over the side because he considered it litter. In 2005, when Lake O was so full that underwater grasses were dying, he made a passionate plea to water managers. “Lower this lake,” he said, “now.”

The last budget Mr. Pruitt supervised as state Senate president in 2008 included $40 million for the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers, $54 million for Lake Okeechobee cleanup and restoration, and $100 million for the Everglades.

Mr. Pruitt became a lobbyist shortly after he left the state legislature in 2009. His firm, the P5 Group LLC, had two Florida Crystals contracts worth about $10,000-$19,000 each in 2012, according to stories in the Stuart News. The firm has 15 other clients, including the cities of Boca Raton and Delray Beach, Broward and Palm Beach sheriff’s offices, the Florida Association of Public Charter Schools, Jupiter Medical Center and New Horizons of the Treasure Coast Inc.

He earned about $347,000 as a lobbyist in 2011 (with Weiss, Handler, Angelos & Cornwell of Boca Raton, which featured Mr. Pruitt prominently on its website for a time.) He earns about $125,000 as property appraiser.

So, is it right for Mr. Pruitt to take money for lobbying when he also holds an elected job as property appraiser? It could create conflicts of interest. But it’s not against the law.
Is it right for him to take money from the sugar industry, one of the biggest polluters of Florida waters? It might give a less hardened politician insomnia, but that’s not against the law either.

Mr. Pruitt, charming and likable as he is, always has been about politics and money. For those who hoped he would continue to champion Florida waters, learning that he’s taking money from the sugar industry is disappointing.

But shocking? Not a bit.

Sally Swartz is a former member of The Post Editorial Board. Her e-mail address is sdswartz42@comcast.net